


i'll swim through the earth (la douleur exquise)

by oldglory



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abduction, Angst, Commander Rogers, Dark, Director Stark, Disturbing Themes, Dystopia, Evil Steve, Gaslighting, Hurt/Comfort, Infinity Gems, Loneliness, M/M, Mental Instability, Multiverse, Murder, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Trauma, Unrequited Love, World-hopping, civil war spoilers, damsel in distress tony, if you're sensitive or have serious triggers i wouldn't recommend this tbh, no light here friends, some Stockholm Syndrome, steve is pretty crazy folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2018-10-08 02:21:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10375689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldglory/pseuds/oldglory
Summary: Following the final confrontation in Siberia, Tony's days are filled with a strange numbness. He wonders, between drinks, what it's like: to be loved by Steve Rogers above all else.The universe decides to answer him, for once. Tony learns to be careful what you wish for.





	1. the abduction of anthony stark

**Author's Note:**

> Because I like Evil Steve. Wish there was more of him.

_La doleur exquise:  the exquisite pain of wanting someone unattainable._

* * *

 

Later, after it’s all gone to shit, Tony will wonder if it wasn’t his own self-pity that summoned the catastrophe. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The night before, he was lying in bed, a drink in his hand while he contemplated the mess that has become his life in the months following his and Steve’s... _disagreement._

He’s had time to stew on the whole ordeal, and while the rage has simmered, the bitterness within him is no less potent - if anything, it has begun to gnaw at him, shortening his temper and his tolerance for the bullshit that so permeates his world.

The bourbon seared down his throat as he drank and drank, until blessed numbness settled in, and Tony could remember that day -  when Steve walked away from him for the final time - without pain. Without the raw, hot swell of _betrayal._

The phone was tucked away in a drawer, somewhere.

Tony had hovered on the edge of dialing its lone contact several times, but fear - and anger - had managed to save him from that particular embarrassment, so far. Right then, the thought of Steve’s voice made him ill, and he sank further into his mountain of pillows, snow and violence and the twist of Steve’s mouth as he brought down the shield playing behind Tony’s eyelids.

He recalled that same shield falling onto the snow, a marker of the choice Steve made.

How awful it had been, the realization that Steve would always make that choice - that James Buchanan Barnes was always going to come first, before the Avengers and duty and Tony.

He’d felt so small, in that moment. Like a stupid child.

Whatever conclusions he had come to about his own feelings, Steve clearly does not reciprocate, and Tony knows now that he was a fool to ever hope otherwise.

And even - even if Steve _did,_ Tony doesn’t think he can forgive the other man for hiding a truth of such magnitude from him. Worse than Steve’s betrayal is the image seared into his retinas, of his mother’s body jerking under Barnes’s metal fingers.

No amount of alcohol will ever rid the sight from his memory, but Tony couldn’t be blamed for trying.

He thought of the look on Steve’s face as he admitted that _yes,_ he had known the whole time. Remembered the set of his jaw as his arm tightened around Bucky Barnes, and the shield slipped from his fingers.

_“He’s my friend.”_

Tony downed another glass.

As his vision blurred, and the pain bled from his heart in a wave of heady numbness, he wondered what it was like. To be loved by Steve above all else.

He’ll never know.

 

* * *

And then, because the universe loves to fuck with him, shit hits the fan the very next morning; Tony is in Washington, trading thinly-veiled insults with Secretary Ross and his Council of Asshats, when an explosion rocks the room, throwing everyone off their feet.

Tony is thrown backwards onto a hive of reporters, who scramble up from underneath him and flee as gunfire pierces the chaos, joined by panicked screams.

He tries to get up, but he must have hit his head, because his ears are ringing and something hot is running down his scalp  - _what the fuck is going on -_

Debris is strewn around him, the room obscured by the black smoke billowing in from wherever the explosion took place. All he sees are flashes of fleeing civilians, and in the haze of his thoughts he wonders if Zemo somehow got loose, again.

Then he hears it - a deep, _familiar_ voice cutting through the cacophony: _“Find him.”_

And a shudder tears through Tony’s body, because that sounds like _Steve,_ but Steve doesn’t give orders with such icy menace -  like your life is forfeit if you don’t obey.

His heart thundering in his ears, he flattens to the ground - a corpse among several, _God_ \-  just as two pairs of combat boots trot by.

_What is this,_ he thinks wildly, while _soldiers,_ fitted head to toe in heavy combat gear, zip by, cradling guns of a sleek, deadly-looking model that leaves his eyes bulging after them.

Tony recognizes the weapon. How could he not?

It was one of the blueprints he scrapped after returning from Afghanistan, when he shut down the weapons sect of SI altogether. Before he destroyed them, they were locked up tight in a vault accessible only through his fingerprints and retinal scans. Not even Obie could have got at them.

_What the_ **_fuck?_ **

His head clears abruptly with the onset of blistering rage, and he activates his repulsor glove, switching the power level from _incapacitate_ to _murder,_ because clearly these guys aren’t fucking around, so neither can he. Revenge - on whoever _stole_ his fucking tech -  is just a bonus, really.

His eyes dart about wildly as he gets to his knees.

The dead are everywhere, from what little he can make out, and he can hear a few unlucky civilians wailing, before short bursts of gunfire silence them.

_Jesus,_ he thinks, breathless with horror and sweltering rage.

Shaking the last of the static from his thoughts, Tony gets to his feet, his mind racing furiously. He was barred from bringing the full suit with him; the glove’s all he’s got.

The odds aren’t in his favor, if he reveals himself. Still.

He turns in a circle, gloved raised, waiting for one of the bastards to emerge from the smoke. He can hear them, boots slapping the marble, but he can’t pinpoint an exact position.

Damn it. He needs _cover._

Tony is running through his memory of the room when a short scream raises the hair on his arms.

It’s coming from his right. He spins towards it, ready to sprint towards the person, damn the consequences, when he hears _that voice_ again, low but piercing in the pause:

“Where is Tony Stark?”

His heart leaps to his throat as the man gasps his ignorance. It sounds like Ross. There’s a beat of silence, and then a horrible crack carries through the room. The man screams, high and awfully, and Tony is rushing towards the sound without a thought.

He picks his way across several bodies - his anger mounting at the sight of each victim - before the smoke clears enough that he can see them, the mob of soldiers near the exit.

Tony seriously considers taking down at least a couple before they spot him, but that wouldn’t end well -  and anyway, not-Steve said _“find him,”_ not _“kill him,”_ so he figures he and Ross both have a better chance of making it out of this if he gives himself up, now.

 " _Hey!”_ he calls, his repulsor glowing dangerously.

The mob turns as one to him, each soldier raising their weapons like a well-oiled machine. He notices, for the first time, the white star emblazoned on their shoulders, and feels sick.

_What is this?_

The unit parts, like a sea of tar. Tony’s eyes first light on Ross, kneeling at the center with a bloody face and a twisted arm, a gun pointed at his lolling head.

“Stark,” he gasps, at the same instant the man towering over him turns, breathing, “Ah. There you are.”

And the world jerks to a halt.

_Steve?_

No, no, his brain corrects, even as his hand falls, along with his jaw.

It’s a clone, or a long lost twin, or _something,_ because they have the same flaxen hair and muscled build, the same soft mouth and square jaw. But there is something fundamentally _different_ about this man, their obvious leader, that Tony struggles to name but is nonetheless _there._ Whatever it is, it leaves him cold.

“Who are you?” he asks finally.

It isn’t until not-Steve’s expression spasms that Tony realizes how the other man was staring at him a moment ago, like a lost puppy sighting its master. The look contrasts sharply with the blood splattering his uniform, dripping from his hands - one of which grips an eerily good imitation of the shield.

Tony eyes the blood gleaming wetly at the bottom, and is tempted to retreat.

“You don’t...know me?” Not-Steve asks. His voice is steady enough, if a little hoarse, but when Tony musters the will to meet his gaze again, it’s to see a frightening fragility shining bright in the familiar blue, like fraying thread.

And Tony understands, like a bolt of lightning, that he’s dealing with _Steve_ ...if Steve were _batshit insane._

_Mind control?_ He wonders, taking a careful step back.

Not-Steve - or maybe Evil Steve, that sounds more accurate - sees the movement and tenses, gesturing sharply at his men.

“Uh,” Tony barely gets out, before they’re swarming him, grim-faced goons brandishing _his_ weapons, and really, nothing makes sense anymore, especially not their careful avoidance of his person, like he has the plague. Instead of being shoved forward, or handcuffed, or something, the soldiers instead gesture sharply with their - _his -_ guns, until he gets the hint and walks forward, his wariness heightening with each step towards Evil Steve, whose eyes don’t leave his.

It’s deeply discomfiting being stared at like that - like he’s the only thing that exists.

By the time he’s stopped before the other man, Tony’s mouth is horribly dry. His hand clenches in the glove as he diverts his attention to Ross, who is glaring up at them both through puffy eyes.

St - _Evil_ Steve’s voice is soft, hypnotic to his ears: “Look at me.”

Despite himself, he does.

Up close, the difference is at once glaring and muted; it’s definitely Steve’s face, Steve’s mouth, Steve’s eyes. But there are dark circles beneath those familiar hues, and a feverish glint within them that again leaves Tony deeply uncomfortable.

_Definitely crazy,_ he thinks, fighting the impulse to tear his own eyes away.

Wet fingers close around his chin, like Evil Steve can sense his thoughts, and Tony inhales the sickly scent of copper as the other man asks, “Do you know who I am?”

Something smart springs to Tony’s lips, but that glint in Evil Steve’s eyes warns him of the weight his next words hold. Self-preservation winning out, Tony gets out, “Steve.”

He wants badly to jerk his head away, to wipe away the blood this distorted version of Steve Rogers is smearing on his skin. Instinct whispers to be still, however, and for once he listens, watching instead as Steve’s face transforms, his previous mask of neutrality flooding with a tenderness that has Tony swallowing thickly, his heart thumping violently in his chest.

Eyes glittering with - with something _unspeakable,_ Steve whispers, “Come here.”

Tony blinks at him. There’s little enough space as it is between them, now - any closer, and he’ll step right into Steve’s chest. Steve sees his hesitation; his fingers tightening around Tony’s chin, he leans down and says, gentle as a lover, “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Tony swallows another unwise retort, and obeys.

Steve - Evil Steve - smells like blood. He can feel Steve inhaling the scent of his hair, a ragged breath leaving his powerful body. The pseudo-shield clatters to the floor; muscled arms wind tight around him, like twin cobras, and Tony can only accept that he’s stumbled into the twilight zone as Steve crushes him to his body, like he can force them into one being.

“Tony,” he murmurs, low and fervent, a lost man’s prayer. His face descends, and Tony watches, dazed, as those eyes flutter closed and that soft mouth parts --

His own mouth is opening under Steve’s before he can really think about it.

There are people watching, he knows, but they cease to matter as Steve’s hand winds through his hair and Steve’s tongue slides, electric, against his. Warmth curls low in his gut, and a distant part of Tony is horrified at the moan in his throat, at the eagerness with which he presses up, up, up, into Steve.

Except, it’s not really Steve. Tony _knows_ that, but it’s hard to remember the shit he’s in when this near-perfect copy of the man he maybe-loves is here, hot and real and devouring him like he’s the only thing that’s real, that matters.

_What is this?_ some negligible part of him is wondering again, but the voice is quickly submerged in the heat searing throughout Tony’s body, dizzy and electrifying.

Steve is pressing into him with a ferocity that borders on violence, all tongue and teeth and groping hands. Tony is frankly lost in it, when Steve pulls away just as abruptly, his fingers digging into Tony waist with bruising force.

“I've missed you,” he breathes. The words are meant for him alone, and as he shivers Tony notices that the goons have carefully positioned themselves to appear as though they're scanning the rest of the room, backs to he and Steve.

_What. Is. Happening?_

It's not until his face prickles that he remembers Ross is kneeling two feet away, and it's an effort not to flinch under the man’s appalled stare. Ross doesn't say anything, but his gaze speaks volumes. Meeting his eyes, Tony briefly considers using his repulsor on himself - _cause that's it, there's no coming back from this, I just swapped spit with Steve’s crazy twin and America will know by tomorrow -_ when St - _Evil Steve_ says, “Oh, right.”

Then he's pulling a pistol of cataclysmic beauty from his holster, and Tony is frozen, because that gun is his design, he would know his own work anywhere, and Steve _hates_ guns, but he's wielding it now like an extension of himself, pointing it right between Ross’s bulging eyes -

_"Hey!”_ Tony, tries to wrench Evil Steve’s arm toward him, but he might as well be wrestling with stone. The other man doesn't budge an inch.

Evil Steve glances down at him, and it's _eerie_ how smoothly his expression can shift between killing machine and exasperated tenderness.

“What is it?” he murmurs, and Tony is afraid.

This is wrong - _all of it._ He's half-convinced he's dreaming, but no dream has ever compelled such stress from his poor heart - not even the nightmares of Afghanistan, harsh voices and rough hands and him drowning in the dark.

It feels like he's drowning now, as he looks into Steve’s eyes. Behind the tenderness is an icy purpose that rattles Tony. He's not sure how to dissuade it. If he can.

But he tries. “You can't kill him.”

“I can,” Steve corrects, watching Tony with a cold amusement that is equally unsettling. “...But I'm willing to hear you out.”

_This isn't_ Steve, he remembers, his hands curling into fists. Panic tight in his throat, Tony forces himself to think through it and says,

“It's not necessary.”

“On the contrary,” Evil Steve retorts, his brows arching. “It's the prudent thing to do. He's a witness, and we don't leave those.”

He taps lightly at Tony’s temple with his free hand. “You should know that.”

_My God._ Tony stares up at Evil Steve, appalled. _He thinks I'm like him._

(So, batshit insane.)

This is worse than the Twilight Zone. Clearly Tony has fallen back into the sordid past times of his youth, and is having a trip of epic proportions.

Needs more unicorns, he thinks, with an edge of hysteria.

Evil Steve’s eyes are glinting.

“Tick-tock,” he murmurs, in a low voice that makes Tony’s stomach curl. Distantly, he registers the goons shifting around them, but he doesn’t dare look away from Evil Steve for long enough to see what they’re doing.

He licks his lips. His hands are shaking violently. Ross’s life rests within them, Tony knows.

_Think,_ he wills himself, fingers curling into white-knuckled fists.

“If you kill him,” Tony says at last, “you’ll only make things worse for yourself. The Avengers - they’ll come down on you with everything they’ve got.”

He carefully doesn’t include himself in that statement. This Steve, wherever he came from, seems to have mistaken him for - for _another Tony,_ and Tony Prime may end up having to use this to his advantage, if --

“The Avengers?” Evil Steve’s drawl cuts into his thoughts. Those lips curl in an odd little smile that Tony does not like at all. “Don’t worry. We won’t be here long enough for them to be a problem.”

Tony steps back. “What do you mean?”

His own voice has become a rather unattractive croak. Evil Steve catches his wrist and pulls him in, again, smiling down at him like he’s cute.

“I mean,” he says, “it’s time to go.”

“Go?” Tony echoes stupidly. “Go where?”

“Sir.” One of the goons is standing at attention a few feet away.

When Evil Steve tilts his head in answer, the man rumbles, “The military is en route.”

Steve hums. “How long until they reach us?”

“Two minutes, maybe three.”

Looking back at Tony, he says, “We’re not quite finished, here.”  

The soldier nods curtly. As he turns away, Steve snarls a hand in Tony’s already-mussed hair, and murmurs, “You hear that, sweetheart? You’re running out of time.”

Tony swallows hard. The closeness, the staring, the tender scrape of Steve’s fingers against his scalp - it’s distracting him, and Tony can’t afford that now. He reminds himself that the man before him isn’t _Steve,_ but a warped mirror - one who will murder Ross, if he doesn’t act.

Steeling himself, Tony turns to Plan B.

He starts by placing a hand on Steve’s chest, suppressing a wince at the blood he feels wetting his palm. It’s all over him, now, but Tony has bigger problems.

Steve’s eyes flash. For a moment Tony thinks he’s made a mistake, but then Steve covers Tony’s hand with his, pressing it tightly to his heart.

And the mask falls away before Tony’s eyes, revealing something desperate and blazing, ruinous. Steve looks at him like a dying man who’s sighted salvation - like he wove the sky and the stars. It’s worse than frightening, really - but some traitorous part of him is exhilarated as well, to be on the end of such a look.

Of its own volition, his head tips forward. Their foreheads touch, his world narrowing to blue, blue, blue.

Steve lets out a tremulous breath that Tony steals for his own lungs. He knows in this moment that he could ask Steve for the sun, and Steve would seize it without question from the sky.

“Don’t kill him,” Tony orders, breathless. After a moment, he adds, “For me.”

Steve - evil, he’s **evil -**  blinks owlishly at him, uncomprehending. Then understanding seems to dawn. His hand pressing painfully over Tony’s, he nods.

“Alright.”

Tony is amazed at the easy concession. He swallows hard as Steve’s thumb sweeps tenderly across the back of his hand. He is looking at Tony with open worship, and Tony sweats under the attention, so deeply at odds with what he knows of the man before him.

It grounds him, though.

That look - of utter adoration, and something else Tony won’t name - has no place in Steve’s eyes. Not for Tony.

He stomps down the pulse of pain as it arises, and forces his attention back to the problem at hand. Namely: how to incapacitate this version of Captain America, without being killed, himself.

And Tony is a genius, but even he’s struggling with this one.

He swallows, his eyes flitting about the gathered cronies. They’re bunching towards their leader now with an air of expectation, a mob of masked faces and _stolen tech._

And he can feel his daze lifting in another tide of molten anger, as the smoke billows and his palm grows tacky with the blood staining the white star on Steve’s chest - as the room swells with the thunderous silence of death.

How many more souls have paid for his existence today? Tony wonders, as Steve’s wet fingers card through his hair. How many more has he damned?

“Tony.”

Steve’s voice cuts through the buzzing in his ears, low and soft. Instinct almost makes him relax, but then Tony _remembers,_ and he wants so badly to raise his hand - to blow that beloved face to smithereens.

“You aren’t Steve,” Tony says flatly, before he can think better of it.

Steve’s eyebrows arch in an achingly familiar way. “No?”

Tony refuses to flush beneath Steve’s dry stare. He’s a grown man, and he’ll be damned if he lets a _boy_ make a fool of him.

“You’re not _my_ Steve,” he snaps, because really, the man is insulting him by pretending otherwise, at this point.

Steve’s eyes darken.

“One minute, Commander,” a crony says, but Steve -  the _Commander_ \- ignores him, leaning dangerously close again. Tony tenses and turns away, his teeth gritting, but Steve seizes his jaw, forcing his head straight again as his lips brush Tony’s ear.

_“I will be,”_ the Commander growls. It’s a threat and a promise all rolled into one ugly package,  and Tony understands, as Steve’s arm snakes around his waist, that he’s in deep shit. A too-loud voice within him screams that he call for back-up, for his friends - but Tony doesn’t have too many of those, anymore. Not enough to matter.

His hand spasms under Steve’s.

Well.

He won’t go quietly, at least.

But Steve’s seizing his wrist and bending it backwards before Tony can fire the repulsor. He gasps as Steve _tsks_ in his ear, like a reproachful parent.

“Don’t fight me, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs, the brush of his lips sending awful thrills down Tony’s spine. “I’ve only just found you, again.”

His voice is strained, soft with a grief Tony can’t fathom. There’s a warning in there, too. Tony is trying to decide if he should heed it or not (this Steve wouldn’t seriously hurt him, he’s starting to think), when the wail of sirens fills his ears, along with the roar of what he recognizes as approaching jets.

_Reinforcements have arrived._

He’s just dared to feel something like relief when Steve straightens, his head cocked toward the ceiling. Soldiers will be crashing through it any second, Tony knows.

He stops struggling for a second, and says, “You won’t win this, Steve. Just - give yourself up.”

The words are bitter in his throat. The last thing he needs right now is Captain America’s evil twin blowing up state buildings and killing civilians while the real Captain is on the run. The media will just _love this,_ he thinks, with a wave of exhaustion.

Those familiar _\- foreign -_ blue eyes sink back to his.

Steve considers him for a moment, silent. Then, without looking away, his hand slides up Tony’s wrist, and he _squeezes._ Tony chokes as his watch sparks and cracks under Steve’s superhuman strength, the repulsor glove retreating within it. 

He watches it die, this creation he put so much into - so much tinkering and all-nighters and _work -_ and Tony thinks, through the cloud of shock, that he’d like nothing more than to knock out every one of Steve’s pearly white teeth, then and there.

His fingers curl with the desire, cold and ugly in his soul, as Steve murmurs, “Can’t have you doing something you’ll regret.”

“Oh, you’ll regret that,” Tony hisses, and _means it._

Steve smiles.

“There you are,” he hums, plainly delighted. “I was starting to wonder.”

Tony wants to punch him so, so badly, and as Steve releases his wrist, he thinks he’s found his chance - but then Steve’s pulling something out of the utility belt circling his waist, something sleek and remote-like -

Tony stares at the purple stone glowing at its center. It is one of the few instances in his life where his mind has gone silent.

“Is that - ?” he starts, and then stops, because of course it is.

He stares, and stares. Then, through a dry mouth, asks, “What have you done?”

The answer to _where_ this Steve came from is unfurling in his head, and it leaves Tony breathless, frozen.

“What I needed to,” Steve says simply. He sweeps his thumb over the stone, and Tony recoils when it flares to life. Its power washes over him in near-overwhelming waves, leaves Tony white and trembling.

“Let go of me,” he says, as Steve extends his arm. The air ripples where he points the stone, space twisting and tearing into what Tony realizes, with a clenching gut, is a portal. Within it swirls chaos, kaleidoscopic and terrible.

“It’s time to go,” Steve repeats, ignoring him. And Tony understands, with a sinking heart, exactly what he means by that. He gapes up at the other man, mouth open in a no doubt stellar imitation of a fish.

Steve nods curtly at his men, who obey his silent command and file into the portal without looking back.

Tony watches them all disappear, his head spinning.

“No,” he says, hating how how feeble he sounds. He can’t help it, though; everything’s moving too fast and it feels like the ground is crumbling under his feet - like the world tilted violently when Tony wasn’t looking and now he doesn’t know left from right, up from down -

“Let go of me,” he gasps, desperately struggling in Steve’s grip, now. _No, no._ “You can’t - I’m not going anywhere with you, asshole, _let me go - !”_

But Steve only holds him tighter, his arm lengthening around Tony until he’s pinned to that bloody star, cursing up a storm.

“Stop fighting me,” Steve says, that edge returning to his voice, but Tony doesn’t hear, too lost in his burgeoning panic, in the terror that little stone and its implications inspires.

_“Let go!”_

The ground is trembling beneath them, and the roar has become deafening. Back-up will rush the building any minute. If he can just stall for long enough…

“We’ve wasted enough time,” Steve tells him, like he knows Tony’s thoughts. He snatches up the shield in one swift motion, and secures it at his back. “C’mon.”

And he starts towards the portal, dragging Tony along with him.

“Wait!” Tony says desperately. He yelps as Steve grows impatient with his struggles, throwing him neatly over one shoulder. “ _Wait,_ goddamnit - !”

“I’ve waited long enough,” Steve says roughly. “You’re coming home.”

The finality in his voice is nothing short of frightening. Tony beats savagely _(uselessly)_ at the shield, his breath loud in his ears, his poor heart stumbling in his chest. On the verge of hyperventilating, he locks eyes with Ross, who is still kneeling on the floor, clutching his twisted arm. He shakes his head at Tony, his eyes dark through the blood falling into them.

And the last thing Tony Stark thinks, as Steve’s fingers dig into his thigh and the portal swallows them, is that he won't find help from anyone, this time. 

_Figures._

 


	2. stark in distress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't originally plan to continue this, feeling pretty meh about it overall, but y'all inspired me to go on with it, so here we are. I feel a little 'blah' about this chapter also, tbh, but I wanted to go ahead and get it out to you guys. Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you like!

When Sam bursts into his room that evening, tight-lipped and trembling, Steve understands there’s about to be problems.

He leaps out of bed, on high-alert as Sam wordlessly snatches up the remote abandoned on Steve’s nightstand, and turns the TV on. The others - Scott, Clint, Wanda - filter in silently, lead by the king of Wakanda, himself. 

Steve starts at the sight of T’Challa, at the look in the king’s dark eyes. 

He hears the frantic voice of the reporter on the TV, but the words don’t register until he turns his head towards the screen, where  _ BREAKING NEWS  _ flashes in huge red letters, hurting his sleep-fogged eyes. 

The fog lifts quickly once he registers the full text, and Steve can feel a dizzying - familiar - wave of numbness overtaking him as he stalks closer, his hands curling into white-knuckled fists.

_ ATTACK ON WASHINGTON, D.C.  _

_ CAPITOL BUILDING DESTROYED _

_ SEVERAL STATE OFFICIALS DEAD OR CRITICALLY INJURED, INCLUDING SECRETARY OF STATE, THADDEUS ROSS -  _

“They’re saying it was a terrorist attack,” Sam says roughly. Steve can see the other man’s fists clenching and unclenching in his periphery. He turns, a question on his lips, when the reporter says a name. And the name pierces the numbness like a bullet, makes the blood rush to his head and the bottom drop out of his stomach. Makes him stiff and cold, so cold as he snatches the remote from Sam’s slack fingers and turns the volume up. 

_ “ - A.K.A. “Iron Man”, billionaire industrialist and former member of the Avengers, was among those caught in the blast, and is currently missing. Reports reveal no sign of the infamous tech mogul amidst the destruction, although police and volunteers are still searching the ruins…” _

Steve turns away from the TV. His head is ringing. Something hot runs down his fingers, and he looks down to see the remote crushed in his shaking hand, its shards cutting into his palm. 

Behind him, there is absolute silence. 

Finally: “Stark’s alright,” Sam says quietly. He’s not trying to be comforting, so much as stating a fact. “It’d take more than that to get him.” 

And Sam may be right, but his words don’t dispel the cold rooting in Steve’s gut. He stares at the wall, and stares, his head filled with that awfully familiar ringing, until someone comes up to his side. 

“Captain.”

Slowly, Steve looks up. Wanda is too close, her eyes glowing a faint red as she looks up at him. 

“What do we do?”

His gaze drops back to his bloodied hand. 

It’s one of the rare times in his life where Steve can’t answer. 

* * *

Tony is warm. 

He rises slowly from the dark waters of unconsciousness, his eyelids fluttering. Something soft is curled against him. The source of this strange bliss, he thinks dimly. It squirms gently in his arms while he stirs, yawning. 

Tony gathers it closer with a contented sigh. His head feels oddly light, unburdened by the nightmares that so often haunt him, these days.    


Something tickles his nose. Tony turns his head further into the silken mass, inhaling the scent of - bubblegum? It’s strange, but it stirs bittersweet memories of his mother - of the cartoon-themed shampoo she would lather in his hair, as a boy. 

_ Let this last a little while longer _ , some soft part of him whispers. 

But his mind, in all its sharpness, is starting to come back online. And through the fog, it catches several oddities.  

For one, the pillow beneath his cheek is soft cotton, rather than the satin Tony is accustomed to. And the light - the light is slanting in when it shouldn’t be. Due to frequent drinking binges and the subsequent hangovers, Tony has gone to great lengths to ensure that every window in his room remains heavily shrouded. (If he wanted sunshine, he’d go outside.) 

Most perplexing of all, though, are the pair of arms wrapped around his torso. He and Pepper aren’t together, and Tony has long lost his appetite for one night stands. 

He shifts a little, perplexed - when he remembers. 

_ Capitol Building _

_ Explosion _

**_Steve_ **

The fog dissipates abruptly.

Tony lays there, stiff as a board, his eyes clenched shut. The jump from blissful to panicked is dizzying, and he dares not move - not even to open his eyes - as the silken mass against his face. Something soft and fleshy bumps his nose.. 

Tony twitches. Opening his eyes is not an option. 

Opening his eyes will make this  _ real.  _

_ It was a dream,  _ he thinks desperately, as the fleshy thing rubs his nose, left to right, left to right. 

His throat bobs. It’s...if he didn’t know better - 

It’s an Eskimo kiss. 

And Tony has to open his eyes. He steels himself, his teeth gritting - but nothing could prepare him for what he finds. 

The first thing he registers is blue, the color of sunlit waters. They’re Steve’s eyes. Steve’s eyes set in a little girl’s face. He stares into them, slack-jawed. The little girl peers back, blinking owlishly. She can’t be more than five years old. 

And she’s  _ Steve’s,  _ that’s as plain as the air in Tony’s frozen lungs. 

Speechless, he takes in the familiar curve of her mouth, the shape of her chin - the long, silken hair that spills over her shoulders in a golden shroud, gleaming in the scant sunlight and smelling faintly of bubblegum. 

For a few suspended moments, they stare at each other. Tony is dangerously lightheaded. He can do nothing but drink in the little girl’s features with stupefied disbelief, and the longer he looks, the worse he feels. 

She is, without a doubt, the most beautiful child he’s ever seen. But the sight of her is indescribably awful to Tony - because he recognizes, as he gapes at the child, a few other things that make his heart shudder in the frail confines of his chest.

It’s there in the set of her brow, in the  _ shape  _ of those eyes, in the slope of the little nose currently brushing Tony’s. 

It’s his nose, Tony thinks, trembling. Rising in his chest is a queer pressure, like a soda bottle shaken one too many times, on the verge of bursting. 

He stares, and stares, his mouth open like a fool’s, until the little girl - who is clinging to him like a starfish - raises one tiny hand to his sweat-slick cheek. 

“Daddy?” she says, in a small, uncertain voice, and Tony almost has a heart attack. “Are you okay now?”

_ No, _ Tony thinks, with an edge of hysteria. No, he is not. He is the  _ farthest thing from okay,  _ actually - and getting further by the second - but he can’t vocalize any of this. He’s too dumbstruck to form any sort of coherent speech. 

“Papa said you would be,” the little girl whispers, like she’s afraid of being overheard, and Tony doesn’t need to ask who she means. A drumming noise has started within his head, growing louder by the second. He almost doesn’t hear as she goes on, “But he lies.”

Tony ignores her. The pressure within him is swelling to near-unbearable lengths. He’ll burst any second. 

He needs - he needs to be away from here, away from this angelic little girl whose mere existence makes him feel like his head’s been turned inside out. Breathing hard, Tony tries to sit up - but the little girl is clinging to him with a strength that all but confirms her heritage, and another wave of nausea crashes over him while he pries mutely at her arms. 

_ “No,” _ she whines, with such raw distress that Tony freezes despite himself, as the child abandons his face in favor of clinging harder. “Don’t leave!”

The hysteria warping her voice is a twin to the panic lighting his insides, flaming and ruinous. Shaking violently, Tony hisses, “Let go!”

They’re buried under a truly ridiculous amount of blankets, impeding his escape. He kicks them off, his eyes darting wildly about the large, airy room. 

The ornate double doors directly opposite the bed are his most likely way out.

_ “Don’t,” _  the child screeches, once he’s free of the blankets. She’s red-faced, holding onto him desperately as she wails, “You’ll get  _ cold _ , Daddy, you have to  _ stay here - !“  _

“Let go, dammit!” Tony snarls, and he can’t even be sorry for cursing at the kid. Everything is upside down, distorted,  _ wrong.  _ He can’t stay here. He’ll  _ burst.  _

But when he’s finally managed to sit up, Tony regrets it. He hunches forward with a gasp, his stomach lurching dangerously. The world spins. 

His vision blurring, Tony wonders what they used to sedate him. 

He dimly remembers emerging from the portal into a small, bare room, and white-clad people swarming them. One of them stuck him in the thigh as he fought in his abductor’s grip, he thinks. 

He rubs at his neck, and becomes cognizant of the faintest ache there.

_ How long have I been out?  _ he wonders, his gaze sweeping the room a second time. The drugs are still coursing through his system, leaving him slow and disoriented. Tony’s gaze falls blearily to his hand. He curls and uncurls it, his breath loud in his ears. 

“Daddy, don’t go,” the little girl sobs into his chest. He looks down to see her soaking snot and tears into the white cotton shirt they’ve changed him into. Assailed by another wave of nausea, Tony’s gaze falls to the soft pajama pants cladding his legs. They fit him perfectly, snug and comfortable in just the way he likes. But they’re worn. Like they hung in someone else’s closet before now. 

Quietly violated, Tony grips the little girl’s bony shoulder. He’s not sure if he means to offer some half-ass attempt at comfort or push her away. The latter seems more likely. 

“You have to stay warm,” she’s babbling, shaking violently against him. And yeah, Tony should put some distance between them. He wants to. Sitting there, half-drugged and helpless, he feels sort of like that woman from the recent (godawful) Alien prequel, when the alien burst from her stomach. 

Tony looses another shuddering breath. He doesn’t fully understand what he’s fallen - _ been dragged  _ \- into, but he gets the feeling that it’s better that way. The few pieces he’s faced with are slotting together to form a picture he doesn’t like  _ at all.  _

Best not to dwell on it, really. 

In the meantime, the girl’s cries are reaching truly grating levels. Tony can’t have her drawing any nearby attention, not before he’s gathered more information, and he just barely catches himself from forcefully covering her mouth. Instead he shushes her softly, his other hand going to rub her back. 

He doesn’t dislike kids, exactly, but he’s not great with them, either, and is silently caught off guard when the child quiets almost immediately, melting into him like butter.

She mumbles that horrific word again, sniffling, and Tony blows out a deep breath. He still wants to explode, but a breakdown won’t help anything right now.  He needs to be clear-headed. To  _ think.  _

He doesn’t know where he is, but he has the sinking suspicion that it’s far, far from home. That glowing stone rips like a blade through Tony’s thoughts, and the memory of the sheer power it emanated is enough to make him ill, again. 

There’s no mistaking what it was. 

“...Sweetheart,” Tony rasps, because if he follows that course of thought - the questions it spawns - he’ll panic again. “Where…”

_ Where am I? Who are you? What the fuck is going on? _

“...Where’s your Papa?”

The girl is still sniffling. She shakes her head. Hope flares in Tony’s chest, tiny and foolish. He grips the girl tightly by her shoulders, his heart thrumming. 

“Hey,” he whispers, licking his cracked lips. “Hey, hey, honey…”

“Sarah.” 

The voice slices clean through him, cold as sleet. Tony and the girl -  _ Sarah - _ go rigid at the same instant.

Sarah buries her face in Tony’s chest with a soft, frightened sound, shaking even worse than before. Tony wants to do the same thing -  _ hide  _ \- but there’s nowhere to go. He stares at the top of the child’s head, her fear eliciting something wintry within him. 

“I told you not to disturb your father,” the Commander says softly, and Tony flinches hard. His head jerks unwillingly to the door, where St - his  _ kidnapper  _ looms, arms crossed over his broad chest. He’s wearing civilian clothes, but Tony knows better than to let that put him at ease. Those hands could snap his neck with minimal effort. He swallows. 

The Commander is staring at the child - Sarah _ \-  _ with what Tony would’ve ordinarily dubbed the Captain America Is Disappointed In You face, known to affect even the most steadfast evildoers. But he wears the expression in a way that is, again, fundamentally from his - his counterpart. It’s his eyes, Tony thinks, short of breath. They’re chips of ice in the otherwise-familiar planes of Steve’s face, remote and frightening in a way that Tony’s only ever seen, once.

And for a moment he’s thrust back into Siberia, Steve kneeling over him, the shield raised. Tony saw the look in his eyes - the way they’d frozen over entirely - and understood he was going to die. He raised his arms, hot with rage and fear and the suffocating tide of betrayal, his heart dissolving with the knowledge that he had never meant  _ anything _ to this man he’d die for. 

_ Fucking finish it,  _ he thought savagely, as the shield came down, down, down - 

“I’m sorry, Papa.” Sarah’s voice, tiny and tremulous, forces Tony back to the present. She’s still clinging to him like a lifeline, too afraid to raise her head. Her little hands fisting in his shirt, she mumbles, “I didn’t mean to.”

“Look at me.” Steve’s tone demands obedience, and for all her fear - or maybe because of it - Sarah raises her head immediately. Her eyes are still streaming as they lock on the Commander, her little nose leaking snot while he says, “Yes, you did. Now go to your room.”

Sarah’s gaze flits to Tony, whose heart twists at the look on her face, despite himself. He can do nothing but watch however as she slowly - reluctantly - untangles herself from his person, her head ducked low. She’s wearing a rumpled blue dress, the hem flaring out at her waist and swishing her bare ankles as she pads meekly past the Commander, her shoulders hunched.

“I’ll be there shortly,” Steve says over his shoulder. 

Then they’re alone. 

Steve closes the door firmly behind her, and turns. Now the full weight of those pale eyes is fixed to Tony, who slowly rises from the bed. He doesn’t know what to expect, and the Commander’s shuttered expression offers no clues. 

His hands flexing at his sides, Tony set his shoulders and stands tall. His mind is racing alongside his heart, but he’ll be damned if he shows weakness to this warped mirror of Steve Rogers. His  _ enemy.  _

They stare at each other for a suspended beat, and then: “You wanna explain yourself?” Tony asks. His voice is steady, light. He’s always been a good bullshitter, when it counts. 

The Commander doesn’t respond. He’s looking at Tony like he can see through the veneer of bravado, those eyes glittering on his. Tony has seldom felt so exposed. His jaw fluttering despite himself, he goes on, “You know, it’s rude to whisk people away without their permission. Call me high maintenance, but I prefer to be wined and dined before I’m manhandled through portals.”

He lets the old mask settle, his posture loosening with a familiar arrogance. “Neat trick, by the way. Color me impressed. It’s not everyday you get to see an infinity stone up close.” 

Tony ambles to the window, his gut clenching at the sea undulating lazily beyond it.

_ Malibu,  _ Tony thinks. They’re in Los Angeles. 

“How’d you manage to snag one of those, by the way?” he asks, though inside he is confused. This place..is it his Malibu estate? The room he stands in is almost his, he sees. But not quite. 

Steve couldn’t be so stupid as to hold him captive in his own house, Tony thinks, frowning at the sea. Why, all he’d have to do is voice a command, and the suit would fly to meet him, via Friday.

Unless she’s disabled, somehow. 

But that’s impossible. The only one who could do that is Tony. 

The hairs lift on the back of his neck, which is all the warning Tony gets. He goes rigid, his heart sticking in his larynx as arms wind around his waist, locking there. He’s pulled securely against a broad chest, and the breath leaves his body when Steve buries his nose in the crook of Tony’s neck, inhaling deeply. 

“I missed you,” he murmurs, his voice soft in a way that rattles Tony even more than the little girl - Sarah. It’s so different from the way he spoke moments ago, it near gives Tony whiplash, and the sensation that the world has tilted off its axis returns abruptly. 

“Let go of me,” he croaks, though he’s dreamed of this. How many times has it haunted him, the phantom press of Steve’s body? How many nights has he lain awake, dreaming of this voice in his ear? 

The answer brings a wave of illness. This is all wrong, so wrong, but he can’t seem to make himself move. Why isn’t he twisting and thrashing and demanding answers? Why isn’t he  _ fighting? _

_ You know,  _ something accuses within him, and Tony does. He knows, and it makes him cold with shame.  _ Weak.  _

“Never,” Steve is whispering into his skin, except it’s  _ not  _ Steve - or at least any Steve Tony cares to know. 

He remembers the screams that filled the hall, the bursts of gunfire that silenced them. He remembers that bloody star. And from that image comes the will to turn in Steve’s grasp, and say, “Listen. There’s been a mistake.”

Steve’s face is inches from his; the softness in it makes his stomach flutter. Tony reminds himself that it’s not really meant for him, and goes on, “I’m Tony Stark, yeah. But I’m not - I’m not the one you’re looking for. I don’t feel that way about you, buddy.” 

And Tony Stark has told a thousand lies before this moment: but none were ever so blatant, he thinks, so uproariously untrue. His mask holds firmly as he goes on, “Sorry to say you bride-napped the wrong guy. Hey, no hard feelings, it happens.” 

He works up the audacity to pat mockingly at the Commander’s chest. “So. You know. The sooner you take me back, the better. No time to waste.” 

The Commander blinks. He says nothing for a long, tense stretch, and then: “Do you ever stop being so absurd?”

Tony puts on his most winning smile, though inside he’d like to crack the other man across the face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean,” the Commander grits, his face hardening abruptly, “You’re not going anywhere. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be, Tony.”

“And where is that?” Tony snaps. He feels like Steve’s cracked  _ him  _ across the face, his mask crumbling hopelessly under the blow. That pressure from before builds within him again, swelling beyond his control as Steve’s words - each punctuated with the same finality from before - sink in. On the verge of - of  _ something,  _ Tony spits, “Playing nanny to your kid? Are you  _ insane?” _

The Commander’s eyes flash in a way that almost makes Tony flinch. He tries to edge out of the other man’s grip, but Steve’s not having it, his big hands closing around Tony’s upper arms with bruising force. Tony hisses in pain, but Steve doesn’t seem to care (another flaw in the mirror), his nostrils flaring as he says, slow and icy,  _ “She’s ours.”  _ He shakes Tony a little. “Mine and yours. You won’t hurt her by claiming otherwise.” 

Tony’s heart is three beats away from bursting. He suspected it, certainly - but to  _ hear _ , out of Steve’s own mouth, that in this other place, he, Tony Stark, is a  _ father?  _ That in some other  _ world, _ they - ?

He shakes his head so violently the world spins. 

“How?” he rasps, because it doesn’t make any sense. The girl looks like both of them. She’s  _ Steve’s. _ ..but she has Tony’s nose, Tony’s brow, Tony’s almond-shaped eyes. 

The Commander doesn’t need to ask what he means.

“That doesn’t matter,” he growls, but it does, it does. “The fact is, she needs you now. We lost you, once - “

His mouth snaps shut in a way that tells Tony he hadn’t meant to say that. He stares, slack-jawed, as Steve sets his jaw and repeats, “We lost you, Tony.”

One of his hands slides up to grip the back of Tony’s neck, hard. Steve is but a breath away, now, but Tony’s not distracted by it, anymore, not as his mind whirs and the pieces slot together into horrifying clarity. 

“I won’t lose you, again,” Steve goes on, setting his mouth like he used - like his counterpart does, when he means to get his way.  _ “Not ever.” _

Then those lips are pressing hard between his eyes, that hand guiding Tony’s head to rest in the crook of Steve’s neck. 

“You’re home,” he breathes, while Tony inhales the scent of soap. Something is rising in his chest, up the column of his throat. He doesn’t know if it’s a laugh or a scream.  “You’re home, and I can - we can be a family, again.”

The declaration is but the final nail in the coffin, the last cog in the machine: Steve already knows that the Tony he’s holding isn’t his. There was no mix up, no mistake. 

_ I’m a replacement goldfish,  _ Tony thinks, and he can’t help it, anymore. He bursts. 

Steve goes rigid against him as the laughter comes bubbling out, high and rippling and a little insane. Tony shakes with it, slumping against his captor, his shoulders heaving as he laughs and laughs and laughs. 

It’s just too funny. 

In this universe he’s - he’s dead as a doornail. So instead of picking up the pieces and going on about his life, like anyone else, Steve had taken it upon himself to abduct another Tony.

“Oh my God,” he gasps, tears rolling down his cheeks. He can’t breathe through the hysteria, his head spinning with it; the dumb look on Steve’s face only makes things worse. Tony throws his head back, howling, and it goes on and on until Steve’s hand clamps over his mouth. 

_ “Quiet,”  _ he snarls, with such un-Steve-like menace that Tony almost -  _ almost  _ stops. But this thing has grown beyond him, now, and he couldn’t if he tried. He thinks of Sarah, clinging to him; the love that shone in Steve’s eyes, moments ago, and he  _ laughs.  _

He’s wheezing by the time Steve manhandles him onto the bed, his expression murderous. 

“What’s the matter with you?” he growls, like he’s honestly puzzed as to why Tony might not be handling this well. His face is hard as granite, but Tony imagines he sees hurt behind the frost-blue of those eyes. One hand pressed to Tony’s heaving sternum, he grits, “Do you need to go under, again?”

Tony gasps for breath, his eyes wide on Steve’s face. 

Only once he’s quieted does the other man’s glare lessen, some. Steve looms over him, shoulders tense, jaw fluttering. He stares down at Tony with the singular focus his counterpart reserved for enemies (or anything to do with James Barnes).

It reminds Tony of Siberia. Wracked with a now familiar chill, he looks away. 

And flinches as Steve’s fingers close around his chin, forcing him to meet those wintry eyes. 

They spark with confusion. A deep furrow appearing in his brow, Steve murmurs in a significantly softer voice, “You’re afraid of me.” 

At any other time, in any other situation, Tony would have vehemently denied it. Even now, his pride bristles within him. But he hasn’t the strength to fling back some sharp defense, or barbed retort. His bravado has deserted him in his sudden bout of madness, and he lays there drained. 

Steve rankles oddly at the silent admission, his eyes flashing. 

“Why?” he demands loudly. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Commander has less of a handle on his emotions than his counterpart, whatever front he put up initially. When Tony presses away from him, into the mattress, Steve only becomes more incensed. 

Before he can blink, Steve is draped over him, his big hand cupping the base of Tony’s skull and lifting Tony’s head, until their noses are nearly touching.

Those eyes dart frantically between his. Searching for something, Tony thinks. 

“Why?” he repeats, his breath mingling with Tony’s. “Why are you afraid? Don’t you - don’t you know I wouldn’t hurt you, ever?”

A queer, tremulous note has entered his voice, the likes of which Tony has never heard - could never have imagined from Steve Rogers, Captain America. He’s reminded of the fragility he glimpsed during their first encounter, when the Commander first set eyes on him. A chill scuttles down his back. 

When Tony says nothing, Steve’s jaw locks hard. 

“I  _ wouldn’t,” _ he says raggedly, his other hand gripping Tony’s bicep with painful force. “You have to - Tony, you’re everything to me.”

The worst part is, Tony believes that. He believes that the Tony of this world owned Steve, body and soul: it’s clear in his face, in the sheer insanity shining out at Tony from the depths of those pale eyes. 

Tony looks into them, and is frightened badly. 

Because he’s not the one Steve wants. Not really. They might have shared a face, or even a past - but he would bet, with all he has, they’re not the  _ same.  _ He can’t replace the one that was lost. And once Steve realizes that…

“You’re everything to me,” Steve says again. He’s shaking violently. “Don’t you see that? Don’t you  _ see...?” _

“Let go of me,” Tony rasps, his heart drumming frantically in his chest. 

His fright must show on his face, because Steve’s own twists abruptly. 

“What did she tell you?” he says, any pretense of calm - or better yet, sanity - falling away like dust. When Tony only blinks up at him, stupefied, Steve jostles him hard enough to make his teeth rattle, and snarls, “ _ What did she say?” _

It takes him a moment, through the mess of his thoughts, to realize he means Sarah. Tony shakes his head, blood roaring in his ears. 

“Nothing,” he croaks, wide-eyed. “She - she didn’t say anything, I swear it.”

The Commander’s breathing near as hard as Tony. He peers down at him, hunting for any hint of a lie. Tony makes his face as relaxed as possible, his pulse racing, and only barely represses a breath of relief when Steve finally nods. 

“I meant for you two to be reunited later,” he says suddenly, the mania retreating so abruptly it’s frightening. Letting Tony’s head fall gently back to the bed, he goes on, “But she’s - she’s missed you. I should’ve known to bar her from the floor until you were ready.”

He shakes his head, his thumb sweeping tenderly along Tony’s cheekbone. “I didn’t think she’d disobey me. Sarah knows better.”

Tony swallows hard.  _ Reunited  _ flashes in his head, neon-bright. 

It’s not enough that the Commander abducted him, he suspects, his lungs straining. Now Steve’s going to pretend he hasn’t, that the Tony he lost never left. Tony wants to call him out on it, to thrash and curse and scream at the other man that he’s no one’s consolation puppy. In the end, though, self-preservation wins out. 

Tony’s no coward, mind you, but the man hovering above him is clearly unstable. Poking the hornet’s nest will get him nowhere, but stung. 

Steve’s hand moves to his hair, his long fingers achingly good against Tony’s scalp. His jaw fluttering, he says, “This is...a lot to take in, I know. I don’t...I don’t expect you to adjust right away.”

He bends down, and Tony holds very still as Steve lays another tender kiss on his brow. 

“What matters is that we’re together,” he murmurs, his voice low in that intimate way that makes Tony’s traitorous heart skip a beat. And he sounds so much like Steve - the  _ real  _ Steve - that Tony’s eyes water, before he can help it.  _ It’s not fucking fair,  _ he thinks, his hands clawing at the mess of sheets beneath him. 

The Commander pulls back and frowns, his thumb sweeping away the tears as they roll down Tony’s cheeks. This, too, is tender, and something tears within Tony Stark while Steve gazes down at him with such frank concern. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks softly, and Tony thinks,  _ everything.  _

_ Take me back. _

_ I don’t belong here.  _

_ You’re not the one I want.  _

“I’m hungry,” he says, still weeping. It’s even true. 

Steve’s face softens immediately. 

“Of course,” he murmurs, planting another kiss on Tony’s brow. “Anything in particular you’d like?”

_ You, to fuck off.  _ “No.”

“Pancakes, then,” the Commander says decisively. The inexplicable anger from earlier has vanished, and even the granite mask is gone. In their place is that unbearable softness. It’s almost worse, Tony thinks. He wants to tear his eyes away, but he’s wary of riling the other man, again. 

Steve looks at him for another tortuous minute, his eyes glowing in his face. Then he gives one last affectionate scrape at Tony’s scalp - like he wasn’t shaking him violently a few minutes ago - and stands. 

“Alright,” he says, and Tony realizes, with a swell of hope, that he means to make them, himself. “I’ll get right on that. Anything else you want me to grab, sweetheart?” 

Tony manages not to flinch at the pet name. He almost asks for a strong drink - but he needs to keep his wits, right now. When he shakes his head, Steve nods and tells him, “Then I’ll be back in a bit.”

He heads for the door. With each step, Tony feels lighter, like he can breathe, again. He swallows hard when the Commander stops in the doorway, peering over his shoulder at Tony with a sharp eye. 

“Try not to do anything -  _ absurd,” _ he says. Then he’s gone. 

Tony listens, breathless, as a series of locks click into place. The moment Steve’s footsteps fade, he shoots up, gasping, the heel of his hand digging into his sternum, where his heart thunders. 

Once he's certain he's not about to have a heart attack, Tony rises from the bed and pads over to the door. He tries the knob, which of course doesn’t budge. 

A strange sound bubbles out of him as he slides to the floor, half-laugh, half-sob. Steve took with him the last dregs of Tony’s composure, and he buries his face in his knees to stifle his wet, ragged breaths. 

_ This can’t be happening,  _ he thinks wildly, desperately.  _ This isn’t real.  _

In his mind rings Steve’s soft voice:  _ “We can be a family again.” _

Tony clutches his head, another awful sound rattling out of him. It’s all his deepest wishes, glaring out at him from a cracked mirror: distorted, wrong.  

And when Steve understands that the Tony he’s chosen is broken? That Tony can’t be who he wants? 

That unhinged anger from before will return, ugly and of a thirst. Tony expects it’ll be the last thing he sees. 

So he sits there, and he laughs while he can at the universe’s barbed little joke. Really, Tony can appreciate a bit of irony.

Steve Rogers will be the one to end him, after all. It’s almost poetic. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this went in an entirely different direction than I first envisioned. There were no little girls, for one. I don't even know where she came from. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!


	3. the fissure in the glass

The thing is, Tony can’t blame Steve.

Actually no, that’s a lie - he can and he does - but he won’t blame Steve _entirely_.

Because Tony knows what it does to you, the cold blade of grief. It first came for him when he was twenty-one, and Obadiah Stane told him his parents were dead. Then again in the mouth of that cave, when the light went from Ho Yinsen’s eyes. Both will follow him the rest of his days; but they don’t compare to what he felt as Pepper fell into the fire.

Tony still wakes up gasping from the memory, sometimes, of her body disappearing into the flames: gone from him, forever. The world had screeched to a halt around him, blood roaring in his ears and something awful - nameless - howling in his skull, until he thought he’d come apart with it.

Tony can’t say what would have become of him if she hadn’t come back. But he knows it would’ve been ugly. Uglier than anything this Steve could come up with.

So he supposes he can understand the Commander, a little.

Still.

He chews mechanically on a piece of pancake, pushing the rest of it around his plate and studiously ignoring Steve’s hawk-like gaze. The other man seems riveted by his every little movement: any other person would have snapped by now under such focused attention, but Tony has lived his life being scrutinized by millions. He pretends it doesn’t bother him, his own eyes fixed to the divinely made pancakes.

They’ve been sitting in silence for a short eternity now. Tony is alternating between plotting his next move and morbid curiosity. The latter eventually wins out.

“You really won't tell me where she came from?” he asks, setting his fork down. He doesn't feel the need to clarify who he's talking about.

Steve doesn’t move, or even blink. He says nothing for so long, in fact, that Tony begins to feel insulted. Finally: “It's complicated,” Steve says, folding his arms. He looks like he wants to leave it at that, but Tony isn't in the mood for mystery. He bares his teeth in something that could be a smile, to all but those who know him.

“Well,” he replies, spreading his hands. “I'm not going anywhere, am I?”

“No, you're not,” Steve says promptly. Like his counterpart, he appears to be practiced in ignoring Tony's wit. Drumming his fingers against his bicep, he murmurs, “We found Sarah during a sweep of one of the last Hydra compounds. We’re not sure exactly how she came about, but tests showed that, biologically, she's ours.”

“But that's not possible,” Tony argues, shaking his head. “There has to have been a surrogate of some sort.” And even then, it doesn’t explain the girl belonging to the both of them. Tony scratches the back of his neck, his mind whirring. “You're telling me you couldn't turn up any further information on the kid? You just - found her, and that was that?”

“There is no further information,” Steve answers, his face unreadable. “The scientists tasked with monitoring her did their damndest to destroy all evidence of their work while we swept the compound. We only barely saved Sarah.”

So no evidence and no answers, Tony thinks, with a spike of irritation. Convenient.

“We,” he echoes, after a moment. “Was this the Avengers?”

Steve’s fingers haven’t stopped drumming.

“The Avengers are a thing of the past,” he says smoothly. Straightening in his chair, he goes on, “You and I have to look to the future, Tony.”

“The future,” Tony echoes. He can't help the wry twist of his mouth. “That's a funny thing to hear from you.”

“Is it,” Steve says.

Tony can feel his face splitting with another razor sharp smile. “It is,” he murmurs. “See, you've always struck me as a here-and-now type of guy. Take this situation for example: instead of, I don’t know, handling your grief like a normal person, you decided to force some poor bastard - “ (see: him) “ - into being your replacement hamster. If that doesn't scream _short-sighted_ , I can't say what does.”

Steve's face hardens. “This, again,” he starts, but Tony isn't finished.

“You can't expect me to just - fall in line with this insanity,” he demands, some of his incredulity bleeding into the words. “If you knew me even a little, you'd realize just how _absurd_ your little expedition was.”

Steve says nothing for a long moment, his eyes boring into Tony. Tony can’t say for certain what it is that lurks in his flinty stare, but it makes the hair rise on his arms. It takes everything in him to look back, his body stiff with an apprehension he can’t hide.

Finally, Steve speaks. “As I said: I don’t expect you to adjust, right away. You need time, and I’m willing to give it to you.”

His voice is even, his face stoic enough that Tony could almost dismiss the near-hysteric man from earlier as a hallucination. The forming bruises on his biceps beg to differ, however, and it’s only their ache - a preview of what looms, should he misstep - that keeps back an acidic reply.

He puts his plate aside. “And if I never adjust?”

For a moment, Steve only looks at him. Then a smile, small and knife-like, cuts across his face. He says, “Well, that would be a problem, wouldn’t it?”

Steve’s eyes are glacial, his face an Arctic landscape, devoid of warmth or light or anything approaching humanity. If Tony were another man, he would flinch away - would scuttle back, panicked, as Steve reaches for his hand, crushing it in his own. Instead he remains stone-still, his heart pounding.  

His gaze locked on Tony’s, Steve murmurs, “You aren’t going to be a problem, are you, Tony?”

It’s not a question so much as a promise, each word soaked with the cold ichor of sincerity.

Tony’s throat bobs. It is only thanks to over forty years of play-pretend - to the world, to his friends, to himself - that he does not cower. Because it’s finally revealed itself in whole: the monster in the mirror, the fissure in the glass.

Tony Stark has fought both gods and men - and strange hybrids of the two - unflinching. But none of his many enemies, save perhaps the Ten Rings - who drowned and beat and hammered him into the man he is - have ever quite inspired the gnawing terror that thrums within him now, beneath Steve’s gaze. Slowly - no sudden moves - he shakes his head.  

Tony learned long ago that there are things worse than death. He thinks now that he could meet them, at Steve’s hands.

So Tony stamps down the fury bubbling beneath his fear, locks it away with his yet-simmering defiance. It’s become clear that he’s in more danger than he realized.

“Good boy,” Steve says. His fingers stroke lightly at the exposed underside of Tony’s wrist, trailing along his veins.

“I’m yours,” he murmurs suddenly, pressing a kiss to those veins, “and you’re mine.”

Tony shivers. Repulsion churns within him as Steve continues, “So long as you remember that, the rest will solve itself.”

Tony doesn’t trust himself to speak, and so does not.

He instead stares at their joined hands, wishing fervently that he still had his glove. He would disintegrate this man without hesitation. He would. The one sat before him is _not his Steve,_ and it’s never been clearer than now.

Steve - a stranger, an _enemy_ \- watches him for a long minute. Tony sweats under his scrutiny. He must not give Steve a reason to believe Tony _problematic_ \- to make due on his promise, whatever that entails. So he licks his chapped lips, ignoring how Steve’s eyes track the motion. Forces himself to speak.

“I understand,” he whispers. And, channeling the love he holds for Steve Rogers, Captain America, Tony squeezes the Commander’s hand. The change is as abrupt as it is disconcerting; Steve’s face floods with an unbearable warmth, his free hand rising to cup the back of Tony’s neck. He brings Tony closer, and for a heart-stopping instant Tony thinks Steve means to kiss him -- but all he does is rest their foreheads together.  

This close, soft with love, his eyes are indistinguishable from the real Steve’s. Tony feels himself sinking into that gaze, melting forward, because the alternative is another panic attack.

“I’m going to make you so happy,” Steve whispers, and this promise is far removed from the one he made a moment ago, in so many words. It makes Tony quake for a different reason.

_Weak._

He lets himself be lulled into the false comfort this fake Steve provides, lets him lay another kiss between Tony’s eyes, those calloused fingers scratching at his scalp.

“Tony,” Steve sighs. It’s a prayer, a mantra - one that clears the last remnants of that darkness from his face. Tony lets himself be held and petted, wondering again at the person his other self was, to have arrested Steve’s heart - and sanity - so absolutely.

What seems an eternity later of this, Steve says in his ear, “I have to go now, sweetheart.”  
Tony thinks he could actually cry with relief. He remains mute as Steve pulls back to look at him, asking, “Will you be alright while I’m gone?”

 _I’ll be over the fucking moon,_ he thinks, but dares not voice. This Steve, as loathe as Tony is to admit it, has sufficiently cowed him for the time being. He nods once, mute and stone-faced. Steve pulls back to assess him, lush mouth pursing slightly at the wall of nothingness he finds.

He caresses Tony’s face for another few seconds, then stands.

“I’ll be back sometime tonight,” Steve tells him, pale eyes sweeping the room. “The TV works, and your favorite books and magazines are all on that shelf there.” He gestures at the far wall. “Plenty of things to entertain yourself with while I’m gone.”

Tony says nothing, his hands fisted loosely in his lap. He feels ready to crawl out of his skin. Steve lets the silence stretch for a few moments, his gaze dragging over Tony, before turning away.

“Is there anything you’d like me to bring back?” he asks, eyes on the door.

 _My suit,_ Tony thinks, but will not say. _The stone._

“The girl,” he says finally, stunning himself as well as Steve, who goes rigid above him.

Tony’s brain whirs while he speaks, what feels like electricity searing in his veins as he meets Steve’s wary eyes. “Sarah. I wouldn’t mind seeing her again.”

Steve’s gaze is hawkish. “Why?”

Showtime, Tony thinks. He makes his eyes limpid, his throat bob, his face tight. He has to be convincing. Everything hinges on it.  “I just…”

Steve’s eyes are piercing, knife-sharp. Tony drops his own.  

“You said - you said she was ours. And in my world…”

An ugly shade of a smile twists his lips. It’s a little too real for his liking.

“Well. Let’s say I never got that chance.”

The best lies contain truths, he muses, as Steve softens above him ever so slightly.

There’s the heavy weight of a hand on his shoulder, and then:

“That’s not true,” Steve murmurs. Tony looks up to see Steve watching him with a terrible gentleness. “You have it, now.”

His hand gravitates again to Tony’s face, like he can’t help himself. “She’s been right here, waiting for you.”

“Let me meet her properly, then,” Tony murmurs, and he works up the courage to grasp Steve’s wrist. As Steve’s face warms with delight, he adds, “I can’t...I can’t be who she wants, right now, but. I’d like to meet her.”

“Alright,” Steve says, a soft breath of sound. He steps in, bending down to rest his forehead once more to Tony’s. “Alright.”

They stay like that for a minute, Steve basking in his presence and Tony fervently wishing he would disintegrate, until Steve pulls away.

“I’ll bring her back with me,” Steve promises, stepping back. “We can all have dinner, together.”

Of course Steve isn’t so foolish as to leave the girl alone with him. Still, Tony has to swallow his disappointment. He nods a little, his eyes falling back to the comforter.

“I’d like that,” he says.

He can feel Steve’s eyes on him, lingering. Finally: “I’ll be back later, then,” Steve says, turning away. Tony holds his breath as he leaves the room, those locks clicking back into place behind him. He falls back onto the bed immediately, his chest heaving.

He’s in such deep shit.

The worst part is, no one’s coming for him. He stares desolately at the ceiling.

Sure there might be some search effort - but when they find nothing? They’ll chalk him off as another of the dead, for sure. No one will guess at the truth. Even Tony is having a hard time digesting the situation, and he’s living it.

There was Ross, he remembers suddenly. Ross saw them.

They aren’t on anything approaching good terms, but Tony saved his life. Maybe that counts for something. If he could relay what he witnessed to the others -

 _What others?_ Tony realizes, a by-now old bitterness seething through him. The Avengers are scattered, gone. What few remain are not enough to help him. And even if the team were still whole...what could they do?

 _Nothing,_ Tony knows, his hands raising to his eyes. _Nothing._

He’s who knows how many worlds away from home. The only one who can help Tony is himself.

Well, he thinks after a moment, sitting up. Call him arrogant, but that’s a leg up over most people.

Adding to his chances is the fact Steve underestimates him. If he can lower the Commander’s defenses...play along with this Stepford nightmare, if just for a little while…

Then Tony can snag the Stone. It’s his only way back.

Let Steve think him docile, pliant, in the wake of his subtle threat. Let Tony play the lovesick fool. (Once, it was even true.)

With this in mind, he sits, and he waits, and he plots.

Steve Rogers is not easily fooled in any world, he’d bet. But Tony’s always been a good bullshitter when it counts.

  


\------------

 

The room holds nothing of use.

It’s been four hours, and Tony still can’t believe it.

All his failsafes, his codes, his secret compartments  - it’s all gone. Wiped away as though they never existed, at all. Tony pauses to consider the possibility that such securities don’t in fact exist here, but it’s just too bizarre. If his dead counterpart was one iota Tony Stark, he’d have installed these things.

To do otherwise is unthinkable. _Sloppy_.

Tony can’t fathom it.

His Tower contains failsafe upon failsafe upon failsafe, for hundreds of scenarios; should Ross - or anyone else - seek to take advantage of his absence and seize the suits, for example, Tony has programmed each and every one of them - including his lab - to promptly self-destruct.

The preservation of his work and its secrets are of paramount importance to Tony: in any world, he’d think. But then - didn’t those soldiers carry guns of _his_ making? They were designs that should never have seen the light of day, which means two things: either Steve wrested secrets from Tony’s counterpart, somehow, or his counterpart gave them willingly.

Both scenarios are ludicrous to Tony. He outsmarted the Ten Rings under similar duress, and imagines he’d have some contingency plan for someone as blatantly dangerous as this Steve Rogers. As for the second option, well. Tony loves deeply and fiercely, with all of his soul: but no one - not Pepper Potts nor Rhodey nor Steve Rogers, Captain America - has ever had  access to _all_ of his secrets, his failsafes, his codes.

It’s madness, Tony thinks, where he’s sat in a heap on the floor.

He cards a hand through his unruly hair - he really needs a haircut - and resumes flipping through the TV’s channels. He spent an hour weighing the potential of scrapping it for its circuitry where it takes up the wall, but nothing he could build from it will get him far.

He’ll need to play a softer game, if he means to make it out of here. As much as Tony is itching to rage and roar and _fight -_ Steve’s hinted what awaits him down that path. He must tread carefully.

Tony hasn’t actually sat down to watch TV in what feels like years. Between projects and meetings and damage control and paperwork and public ventures and what time he makes for his few remaining friends, there’s never any left for such mundane things as this. It’s exceedingly strange for him, and its with discomfort that he settles on something vaguely familiar, that show with the talking sponge.

The news channels are disabled, he’s found, along with everything that’s not old movies and cartoons and reality TV. He wonders as he leans back against the bed what exactly it is Steve’s hiding from him. If Tony even wants to know.

Well. He means to find out one way or another, starting with the girl. Sarah.

She knows something. Something _big_ , if Steve’s earlier mania was to be believed.

He’ll have to get her alone, somehow. Build trust between them. If she already thinks Tony’s her father, then it shouldn’t be hard.

He snorts to himself, his eyes pinned blankly to the TV screen. Him, a father. It’s beyond bizarre to think that, while he was busy making mistake after mistake in his own reality, in another world another Tony Stark cradled his daughter. A little girl with his nose and Steve’s eyes, whose bright blonde hair smells of bubblegum.

Tony’s chest tightens. Maybe he was even good at it.

The strong urge for a drink overtakes him then; as he climbs into bed, Tony considers giving in to the demon and asking Steve when he returns. But no, no. He scrubs a hand over his eyes. That little girl will be with Steve, and she’ll look at Tony with those eyes and...he can’t. He can’t.

Tony’s been watching _Spongebob_ for two hours - it seems to be a marathon - when he hears the telltale sound of the door unlocking. He jerks into an upright position, his heart thundering as the doors open. Steve fills the doorway, a huge tray of steaming dishes balanced in one hand while he holds the way open for Sarah. She comes in carrying a brown paper bag, dressed in overalls and a blue T-shirt. Her eyes light immediately on Tony, who sits transfixed beneath them.

Sarah glances back at Steve, who nods once, then breaks into a little run towards Tony. He has to stifle the urge to flatten against the headboard as she stops before the bed, peering up at him like he made the world.

“Here, Daddy,” she says, holding out the bag almost shyly. “We got you dinner.”

Her expression reminds Tony of a puppy who’s been told to sit, eager and hopeful and adoring, only barely restrained. There’s nervousness there too, however. Tony wonders which of them put it there. He very carefully does not look at Steve as he accepts the bag. A familiar aroma drifts from it; take-out. Stretching dry lips into what he hopes is the semblance of a smile, Tony murmurs, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

It’s the right thing to say: Sarah’s nervousness is replaced with blinding happiness, a checkered grin splitting her cherubic face.  “You’re welcome, Daddy!” she chirps, practically bouncing in place. As Steve closes the door behind him and Tony sets the bag aside, Sarah stands on her tip-toes and stretches her arms towards him, her tiny hands opening and closing.

“Can I come up with you?” she asks, the trace of a whine in her voice.  

Before Tony can answer, Steve is there. He sets the tray gently on the bed, eyes locking briefly with Tony’s before he turns to Sarah. “Let’s get settled here first, sweetheart.”

When Sarah subsists, the barest pout on her face, Steve turns to him. “I got your favorite,” he says, nodding at the bag. “But if you’re not in the mood for take-out, there’s soup, chicken, and vegetables here.”

“Thanks,” Tony mumbles. He didn’t think he was hungry, but the smell from the bag is awakening his apetite. When was the last time he had take out? He can’t remember, and is curious to see what Steve thinks is his favorite.

He paws through the bag’s contents under Steve’s close attention. Inside is a box of white rice, some egg rolls, and a container of orange chicken. Tony pulls it out, his eyes wide. Burgeoning laughter tightens his throat, and its an effort to restrain it.

He _hates_ orange chicken.

Tony ate too much of the stuff during his creative binges in college, when it was easier to pick up take-out and return to his projects than gather the materials and time to cook. At one point his refrigerator had contained nothing else. The smell, now that he’s pinned it, makes his stomach turn, too closely associated with late nights and hangovers and the vomit that still stained his toilet bowl the next day.

Perhaps his counterpart made himself sick on some other dish in those days, Tony muses. Whatever the reason - Steve is _wrong._ He’s torn between vindictive glee and the same grim certainty that had seized him hours ago, when Steve first left him.

 _I’m not the one he loved,_ Tony thinks. _Not quite._

He wonders what other differences will make themselves known in the future. Will they be little, like this? Or vast?

“Is it…” Steve’s voice cuts into his thoughts, and Tony’s head snaps up to see him watching Tony with the same nervousness that had grayed Sarah’s features moments ago, if more subtle. “Is it alright?”

“Oh - it’s fine,” Tony lies, and bites down on his most winning smile. Steve might get suspicious if he smiled. “It’s just - it’s my favorite.”

Steve relaxes infinitesimally.

“Good,” he murmurs, with a wisp of a smile. Then he reaches for Sarah, whose attention has drifted at some point to the TV, where _Spongebob_ is still on. She starts as Steve gets his arms around her, hoisting her easily onto the bed. “Up you go, princess.”

Sarah clings to him a moment, her gaze dropping with distaste to the little plate Steve’s set aside for her, loaded with chicken and peas. Steve catches the look and says, his voice soft but firm, “I expect you to eat all of it.”

Sarah’s eyes flit, lightning quick, to Tony. Worming away from Steve, she asks, “Do I have to, Daddy?”

Tony stiffens. He looks at Steve, who lifts cold eyes from Sarah to assess him, silent.

 _No,_ says that part of him still reckless with defiance. _Throw the plate in the bastard’s face._

But Sarah is five, max, and Steve is Steve. And this, Tony thinks, returning Steve’s gaze, is the first of many tests.

“Go ahead and eat your vegetables, darling,” Tony murmurs, dropping his eyes. The endearment is oddly smooth on his tongue. “They’re good for you.”

Sarah’s look of betrayal all but confirms Tony’s suspicion of him having been the doting parent. His chest actually tightens at her expression, but defying the Commander isn’t worth the girl’s favor, right now. They’re playing a game, he and Steve. Tony doesn’t intend to lose.

Steve nods at him now, approval softening his brow. Tony tries not to shudder in relief.

It’s not hard to act subdued as he sets in on his meal, nausea flipping his stomach when  the first bite of chicken touches his tongue. Aware of Steve’s intent gaze, he tries to chew more enthusiastically than he had the pancakes earlier, and makes a show of going in for the next bite, and the next.

“Good?” Steve asks. The look of quiet amusement he wears - brows arched, mouth upturned - is so familiar that Tony nearly breaks the plastic fork in his grip, his heart twisting sharply in his chest.

The sudden swell of nausea Tony feels is not the chicken’s fault, this time, and its with herculean effort that he manages to keep it down.

“Good,” he croaks, looking to Sarah, who is poking sullenly at her peas. The child continues to unsettle Tony deep down - but she’s safer than this alternate Steve, who in some moments is indistinguishable from the one that still occupies the raw hollow of his heart.

 _You’re not him,_ Tony thinks fiercely, his eyes glued to the golden fall of Sarah’s hair. They might share a voice, and a face, and a name, but what makes up a person goes well beyond these things, as Tony has learned - is learning. He’s never really had to think about it.

Dinner is a long, strained affair. They sit in a loose half-circle on the bed, Tony and Sarah both making a show of eating under Steve’s watchful gaze. It quickly becomes apparent that Steve could give two shits about any sort of awkwardness regarding the situation: legs folded, calmly inhaling his soup, he is the picture of serenity, and does not bother to make conversation from his place directly opposite Tony.

Sarah finishes eating before either of them, and startles Tony when she immediately crawls over towards him, burrowing into his side like she belongs there. Maybe she does.

 It doesn’t feel like it though, and it’s all Tony can do not to stiffen as Sarah clings, her little hands fisting in his shirt.

 _“I’m ready!”_ sings the talking sponge, his bright colors reflecting in her eyes. While she watches, Tony watches her, his chest tight enough to hurt. He’s never been good with children; for a long time they were seldom more than a thought in his head - the kind of passing fancy that remains just that.

 But Sarah is here and Sarah is real, a warm presence nestled into his side with the kind of trusting adulation only children are ever really capable of - and Tony is _terrified_ of her, of all that she means.

 His hand spasms with the urge to touch her hair, to push her away. He sits there frozen between the two impulses, his jaw locked.

 Then, slowly, slowly, Tony lets his hand rise. Sarah starts as he touches her hair, her face lifting to his. They stare at each other for a suspended beat - and then Sarah relaxes back into him, her cheek pressed to his heart. Her hair is silken gold between his fingers, and something nameless sparks in Tony’s chest as he relaxes, too.

 The moment is ruined, however, when he looks up to find Steve watching the both of them. His expression is strange. Those lips are pulled into a little half-smile that Tony doesn’t like, for the glittering of those ice-chip eyes.

 He can practically hear the cogs turning in Steve’s head, the mental pat-on-the-back at a stage well-set. He barely represses a sneer.

 Let Steve think himself the puppetmaster, and Tony all bound in his strings. It’ll make this easier, in the end. With that in mind, Tony tears his eyes away from Steve’s and stares blindly at the TV, his hand still buried in Sarah’s soft locks.

 He is weak, and a fool, and a failure. But he is also Anthony Stark, a fact Steve seems to have forgotten, if he ever really knew at all.

 Well, Tony will remind him. In time.

 (He has been here before.)

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been a while. Have no excuse, except that I'm a student and inspiration comes and goes. I've actually had this third chapter sitting on my drive for a while, and I wanted to make it longer, but I've put off updating long enough, I suppose. 
> 
> To anyone still reading, thank you! Hope it was alright.


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